Free Personal and Nursing Care, Scotland, 2022-23

This Statistics Release presents the latest client and expenditure figures for Free Personal and Nursing Care (FPNC) in the 2022-23 financial year (i.e. the period from April 2022 – March 2023).

Free Personal and Nursing Care (FPNC)

Free Personal and Nursing Care has been provided to eligible people residing in a Care Home or receiving Care at Home in Scotland since 2002. FPNC includes Free Personal Care (FPC) and Free Nursing Care (FNC):

• Free Personal Care (FPC) has been provided for people aged 65 and over since 2002; this was extended in April 2019 to people aged 18-64. It is provided both for people in Care Homes and for people receiving Care at Home.
• FNC is also available for people assessed as requiring this without charge.  Data in this publication relates only to FNC in Care Homes.

More information about eligibility for these payments, and the care covered by them, is available in the Definitions and Eligibility section of this publication.

To monitor the update of the policy, the Scottish Government collects information on the numbers of people resident in Care Homes and receiving Care at Home, how many people receive FPNC payments, and the amount (cost and time) of personal care provided at home. This information is collected in the Quarterly Monitoring Return, and published annually in this publication.

Information contained in this report

This release presents information submitted to the Scottish Government by Local Authorities in the Quarterly Monitoring Return to give a picture of:

1. the number of people aged 18 and over resident in Care Homes, and how many of these receive Free Personal Care (FPC) and Free Nursing Care (FNC) payments
2. the number of Care at Home clients, and how many receive personal care
3. the estimated weekly hours of personal care provided to the above Personal Care at Home clients
4. the estimated amount that Local Authorities spend on FPC and FNC payments to Care Home residents,
5. expenditure by Local Authorities on providing free Personal Care services to those living at home.

The chapters of this report follow these 5 main themes.

In common with last year’s publication, the same variables are presented for clients aged 18-64 and 65+. Each of the 5 sections will treat these 2 age groups in turn, although the Key Points section also considered the combined adult population.

The separation into these two age groups is in part due to the different care needs of each group, and additionally because in April 2019 these payments were made available to those aged 18-64, under Frank’s Law. For more information, please see the Data Sources section of the accompanying ‘Methodology and Background Information’ document.

Understanding the statistics in this report

All information in this Statistics Release is presented for financial years - from 1 April to 31 March. Where possible, information is reported for a rolling ten-year period, which in the case of this release is from 2013-14 to 2022-23.

Figures presented within this report and in the accompanying tables have been rounded for disclosure control purposes:

• numbers of people have been rounded to the nearest 10
• numbers of hours of care provided have been rounded to the nearest 100
• expenditure figures have been rounded to the nearest £1,000

However, calculations of percentages have been made using unrounded figures. This means that percentages presented in the publication text may differ slightly from those calculated using the figures within the accompanying tables.

All variables are collected at Quarterly Resolution, referring to the final day of each Quarter (for total number of long-stay residents supported in Care Homes) and final week (for all other variables collected. These include numbers of Care Home residents receiving FPNC, number of (personal) Care at Home clients, and estimated hours and expenditure of Personal Care at Home provided).

In most cases, only a single annual figure is reported for each variable in this report. The method used to obtain this single figure differs depending on the variable:

• for data counting numbers of people or numbers of hours, the Quarter 4 (Q4) figure is taken as representative of the entire financial year
• for expenditure data (including estimated expenditure data), the figure for the last week of each quarter is taken to be representative of the average weekly expenditure for the whole of that quarter. All four quarters’ figures are scaled up (to give estimated quarterly expenditures), then these four figures are added together (to give an estimated annual expenditure)

Figures for all four Quarters are available for each variable in the accompanying tables, broken down by Local Authority.

During the data validation process, some Local Authorities identified errors or changes to their previously submitted 2021-22 Q4 figures. This has led to previously published figures being revised for some tables. It should be noted that the revisions made at Local Authority level generally have a comparatively small effect on the Scotland figures.

More background information, previously contained within this publication itself, is given in the accompanying Methodology and Background Information document. In particular, Appendix 2: Collected and Calculated Variables lists the variables collected in the Quarterly Monitoring Return and explains how others were calculated from them.

How to access data

Two spreadsheets showing rounded background data used to write this publication can be accessed via the ‘Supporting Documents’ link on the 2022-23 Free Personal and Nursing Care page on the Scottish Government website. These present figures both at Scotland total and Local Authority level. A separate spreadsheet is published for adults aged 18-64 and adults aged 65+.

Past editions of this publication, dating back to 2010-11, can also be accessed via the Free Personal and Nursing Care collection.

For other data and publications relating to social care produced by the Scottish Government, please see the Social Care Analysis page on our website.

A National Statistics Publication for Scotland

The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. This provides assurance that these statistics are of the highest quality and meet user needs, and that they comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Further information on National Statistics is published by the UK Statistics Authority.